Jennifer Henderson Kelly Florczak Lauren Cargill Rachel Le Dr. William Archibald English 110.50 Social Networking: The Negatives of Online Dating According to Online Dating, Online Dating started in 1980 when virtual message boards were created and they were named Soc.men and Soc.women. This was thought to be an easy way to communicate with a widened range of people in the comforts of their own homes through computers. It did not gain ratings until the 1990s when the internet became very popular. While the internet went through the roof, it also took online dating with it. In 2004, it is stated on Wikipedia, that the United States alone spent $469.5 million on online dating, and by the end of the year there were eight hundred and forty four lifestyle and dating sites. Dating Sites have skyrocketed since the mid 2000s. Now you are able to freely browse sites just as easily as you can search on Google. Online dating sites are easy to search through based on your likings. Some people search specifically in sexual orientation, by race, and by religion. Hitwise reported that JDate (for Jewish Singles), Christian Mingle and Christian Café, Manhunt (for gay men) Love From India, Black Christian Meet, Amigos (for Latino singles), Asian People Meet, and Shaadi (for Indian singles) are the top rated popular sites (Online Dating Service 2). When you use the online sites you can make a profile and you write things to describe yourself. Most of the websites have boxes that you can check off to describe your interests and dislikes. People who faithfully use online dating usually range from the ages of twenty-three to twenty-seven and then forty to forty-five. You normally see young couple on the websites sharing how they have found love over a small amount of time. The major online sites used today are Match.com and eHarmony.com. They are very popular and even have commercials that air on primetime television to get more publicity. Match.com services forty countries and territories, and also hosts websites in fifteen different languages. Their mission is to help singles find the kind of relationship they are looking for (Match.com). EHarmony is more in depth with finding your perfect match. Not only do they help you find someone you have things in common with, they help you pick someone with the same chemistry in all aspects. The three goals they focus on are core traits (such as emotional, adaptability, and intellect), values and beliefs (such as spiritually and feelings about children), and relationships and skills (such as conflict resolution) (eHarmony.com). This is not always a good thing because you are putting your whole life out there and everything that you believe in. You can easily be taken advantage of. Online dating comes with a lot of disadvantages that most people do not consider before signing up. According to Online Dating, a lot of dating websites will keep user profiles online for months or years even though the person is not currently active, making it seem like there are more members who are available. Some sites require that the users have to be subscribed before they can trade information, so when the send messages they will take off the email addresses, telephone numbers, etc. Some sites have “bait profiles” that are placed by the site owners just to attract new users and many users have sent complaints concerning this problem. Members are attracted to low-priced free “trial” memberships where you have to enter your credit card information just to join, but do not know that at the end of the trial, the memberships automatically charge the full fee even if the user has not used any of the services. Online predators find online dating sites interesting because the sites expand them to ‘new targets’ of opportunity for Internet fraud (Online Dating Services). It is also stated on Online Dating Services that even when some members’ profiles are “real”, there is still a lack of trust. Some users may not be comfortable with the way that they look, so they would opt in telling a white lie by saying they are taller than what they actually are or they are younger than what they actually are. There are several major disadvantages to online dating that we will discuss today. The first one is falling victim to scam artists, the second one is your ‘match’ could pretend to be someone else, and the final one is your ‘match’ could end up living in a different state that may be far away. Many things can go wrong if you are not careful but we will only go into further details about the three mentioned above. Hopefully after reading this paper, you will see that we feel strongly about the disadvantages to online dating and se that we are against it for these reasons. Online dating is used worldwide and has been out for a long time. Modern technology has come a long way and benefits the realm of dating, but how safe is it? When it comes to looking for love online, you have to be conscious of the different types of scams that you may run into along the way. According to dictionary.com, he term scam means, “A confident game or other fraudulent schemes, especially for making a quick profit”. In today’s society, there is enough scamming going on right in front of our faces, so who knows what is really going on with someone on the other end of a computer. Now when you think about scams, that topic alone can be really broad, so today we have narrowed it down into two areas. The first area that we will discuss will deal with con-artists and identity theft. The second area of discussion will deal with rapist and sexual predators. In regards to con-artist, these people are always trying to find a way to advance at other people’s expenses. When signing up for these online dating services, it is most important to protect your personal information. There are tons of people who sign up for these services, without the intent of utilizing them for what they are intended for. According to match.com’s safety tips, you should always guard your identity. They go on to say that you should not share your real name, personal phone numbers, or any other identifiable information on your public profile pages. Also while IMing or emailing until you feel comfortable enough to do so. I would like to expand on this idea a little. When you have your personal information on these made up profile pages, it is that much easier for an online predator to steal your identity. That is what this whole idea of a con-artist is all about. These people of all races, shapes and sizes, as well as ages go from page to page just to see if they can find that one person who did not know the danger of revealing their personal information on their profile page. Back home in Philadelphia where I am from, I know a guy named Richard Tasker who fell victim to this selfish act. Richard was kind enough to share his story with us through a personal interview. Richard had signed up for a personal profile on eHarmony.com in hopes of finding his soul mate through different compatible outlets. What Richard did not know was that he had just signed his identity away to an online scam artist. After communicating with someone via IMing, emails, and telephone for about two months, they both agreed that it was time to meet face-to-face. Richard and this unidentified woman met after just two months of communicating, at a local club in the city for some drinks. After ending their date and going their separate ways, Richard never heard from this woman again. He tried reaching out to her via familiar outlets as used before, but he did so to no avail. About a week had gone by and he had given up on contacting this woman, but then he noticed that he Social Security Card was missing from his wallet. Everything had immediately become clear to him; this woman had stolen it from his wallet when he left it in his coat as he went to the bathroom. Although things were bad enough, Richard did not yet realize that things were about to get worst for him. Richard did not know much abut the Dos and Don’ts to online dating. When he created his profile page, he added all of his personal information like his real name, address, phone number, date of birth, etc. So now not only does this woman have his Social Security Card, she also has access to his personal information through his profile page. When you decide to subscribe to these online dating services, this should be one of your biggest fears. By the grace of God Richard was able to turn everything over to the police and get things situated before it was too late, but for someone else, it may be too late. This is one reason why we feel that online dating and meeting people over the web should never be an option for anyone. Now that we have talked a little about online identity theft, we would now like to talk a little about online sexual predators. There are lots of people who surf these online social networking sites in hopes of finding another victim. There have been plenty of cases where one will find that someone made up a false page on these dating sites just to get women into a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of. According to eHarmony.com’s Q & A portion of the website, a subscriber asked if it was safe to go on these blind dates alone; eHarmony responded by saying that it is always better to be safe than to be sorry. Always make sure someone knows where you are going. I would like to add to that by saying that if you can take someone with you that is even better. If you find that you are alone and your blind date and your date becomes a bit abusive, demanding or just plain crazy, relocate yourself to a public area surrounded by people and phone a friend. I found that this is the easiest way for woman and men to themselves in these types of situations when dealing with online dating services. So far we have discussed the topic of online dating scams, now we will go into the topic of not actually being the person that you say you are. As already mentioned, dating through the internet can be one of the most deceitful things done through social networking today. There are so many people world wide that go on dating websites to find their match. Well what some people do not realize is that the person that you are talking to and seeing pictures of someone that may not really be that person. There are many things that someone who dates online can do to deceive another person about their profile or about themselves. First thing you can ask yourself is can I trust this person? Well, how much do you really know about this person? The things that you know about a person who you meet online may not be anything like they really say. You have not seen or met this person personally so trust might not be the case (Negative aspects). There are things people should consider before they get their selves involved with a website. With online dating the person will have a picture of themselves on the front page for you to see what they look like. There are things on the webpage that show different facts about yourself and also the picture of you and some of your friends. This page is almost like a MySpace or a Facebook (represented for college and high school students). “Numerous people exaggerate or lie about who they are” (Pegsus.cc.ucf). People can put up a picture of their best friend so that they can get more attention than they feel they would get with their own picture. This means that the person you are looking at and think you are talking to ay not really be that person. They can already start off the relationship wrong by giving you a faulty picture. Dating online is probably one of the most secret places to date. Since being on the internet is not something you can just track all the time you do not really know what the other person is doing. The person you have been talking to for the past two weeks may be talking to someone else as well. You never know if the other person is talking to more than one person. This would be called an online dating cheater (Negative Aspects). This does not sound like it is that big of a deal seeing how that you have not even met this person personally, but to some it is. Online dating can hurt the person that is on the website to find their true match. The worst, and most deceitful thing with online dating are the people that put the wrong answer in their status box or in their about me sections on their pages. This means that people can say that they are in a complicated relationship and when someone from the site comes on to the page and sees this person that could have possibilities. Online websites give users the, “Anonymity for the members to misrepresent their status” (Negative aspects). A person can write anything and everything they want about themselves on their pages because it is not like someone is going to read it and say that it is a lie. Online daters need to be very careful and watch the things they do and say with other people they are talking to. There are ways to get around dealing with a deceitful person from dating online. The one way would be to make sure you read all about their information and see what kind of a feeling it gives you. Then you need to look at the picture of the person and decide whether or not it is the real picture. You should chat with the person and ask them to send a recent updated picture of themselves (dating2day). This may help with you decision on pursuing a relationship with this person. A perfect example of the topics discussed above would be: A woman named Tammy that was married once and had two kids wanted to find that perfect guy to be in her life and in her kid’s lives. So when she first decided to go on the internet to find the guy she was very nervous and skeptical about it. She had her co-workers make her webpage. When she first started to get used to the website she began filling out the information about herself and the things that she was looking for. She had her own page and was on her way to find her special guy. She went on to her webpage and saw that she had a few messages. There was a repeated message from the same guy. So she read those first and noticed how interested he sounded. Then naturally, she responded to his messages. After they were talking a few weeks through mail, they began to communicate over the telephone. They were then ready to meet in person. Before she wanted to meet in person she asked him to send a picture of him to her so that she would know who to look for. So he did and she was relieved that these were the same pictures she had seen before. They end up going out on a date after talking to each other for the past month. Tammy goes out on this date feeling like everything should go very well just like all of their conversations had gone. Well when she got to the restaurant she noticed him and went over to the table. When she got over to the table they both introduced themselves and they started their date. Throughout the entire date all Tammy wanted to do was get out of there because she was so bored and didn’t feel like hearing his boring stories about work. After that date she didn’t call him again. This date was an example of how things can end up when you are online dating. You can be mislead, deceived, and be at a loss of trust. Traditional dating was pretty much asking the “girl/guy next-door” to the movie or to dinner and it was that simple. As technology has advanced our personal lives, a person would date someone who lived in the next town and even across the globe which was unheard of, in the “old-days”. Relationships are a rough knot to be untied so dating online would just add more of a strain. If you “google” online dating, millions of websites is searched in seconds but only a few million sites would actually give safety tips from your “virtual-loved” ones. We had a chance to talk to David Warner; the man who had flew across states to meet the woman that he had met over the internet through one of the online dating websites that he subscribed to. We asked why he would waste money just to see someone that he had never met before. According to him, he had checked out pages of women that and had narrowed down possible woman who have some of the same interests and hobbies as him. Then one day the internet-cupid hit him by a click, he stated, “I started to skim through her profile then I stop to look at her pictures then I actually went back to read her profile word-for-word”. It had taken him awhile before he actually had the courage to email her but she didn’t reply until 2 weeks after. They had been chatting and emailing each other since. Then he continued, “Our relationship went to the next level when she asked for my phone number and I don’t know what had struck me, but a man with big thumbs like me, went to add unlimited text to my plan which I never had before; I thought only ‘teens’ would text and I felt so silly since two people in their mid-thirties would text”. They have been online dating for over a year-and-a-half to be exact, according to his counting. One day out of a blue, about two weeks before Christmas, he thought it would be nice to date “off-line” and great to spend the holidays with her. He rushed to book a flight on the earliest plane to her. He flew over to Texas to meet her then he didn’t tell me how he felt when he first met her, but he did mention that he could not get out of there fast enough. The entire one and a half year online relationship had been based on fake pictures and a misrepresented storyline. He said that he had never been more humiliated in his life. Now I am sure that there are plenty of people who subscribe to these online dating services who would love to tell you that their story was just a little different, but the reality is things like this happened everyday. His story had added to what we thought of online dating. As we researched and found different sources that deal with all the issues and problems that people had while dating online, this further proved the notion. People that are doing the international or long distance dating have a triple oppression than to date some one that you know from friends and included, local online dating. One of the tips that we have found on almost all of the sites that we visited was safety, how to, and dos and don’ts. Especially, when it is come to women when it’s their first visit or come to an unfamiliar place, they need to be extra careful of where they are going to and staying. Most websites would bold or number one tip and that is to be careful and to keep in mind things such as hotel location or private rooms and do not take or wear valuable items on your first date. Second tip is to use taxi from your location to the arranged meeting place which is also in public rather than in your hotel room or in a remote location. Although, the other person might insist to visit more privately for more convenience, you have to take into account that you do not know this person. Third tip is to keep friends and family posted that you have arrived and when you plan to return or when you are going to meet someone and where. Unfortunately, you may trust the person that you are chatting with or talking on the phone for months, and they may seem to be the one for you are, but once you meet them, things may not be what the seemed to be. The old saying goes, “if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is”. Based on eHarmony’s users or any other people whom are using online dating services, the advantages are, “just for the price of a couple of drinks or dinners, you could subscribe”. So to pay a fee of x amount of dollars to view a few pages, of people that may have the same interests as you may be worth it. The saying, “looks are not everything” but actually viewing a profile with pictures help still does not help the matter at hand because “they are not always who they said they are”. Also to help you eliminate the “it is not you but it is me” kind of situations, give yourself the chance to see them so it will not be a disappointment when you finally meet. There are advantages and disadvantages in all kinds of dating whether it is online or off-line and more importantly, internationally, so to prevent yourself from getting into risky things or unhealthy relationships that you may regret later. Even if your relationship have gown into a “mutual love,” like in Mr. Warner’s story, you always need to keep in mind that there is a huge population of a untruthful people on earth. Unluckily, you could be draw as one of the victims, so do research of where you want to provide your privacy information such as addresses and phone numbers. After hearing all the experiences, we still agree that online dating is very dangerous. The interviews make it easy to see that people can get hurt emotionally and physically. There are many problems that people face, but they fail to say when talking about online dating. Most of the time people just share stories of how their relationships worked or did not work instead of listing the dangers. When on the sites, they do not have the disadvantages written in fine print. People have to use these websites at their own risk. We wanted to let it be known that online dating is not as safe as everyone makes it seem. Just one slip up can cost someone their identity or precious time. People need to make sure that the person they are interested in is the same person who is behind the computer. They should contact the person to meet up and make sure it is in a public place. Online daters should be aware of scam artists, know that blind long distance relationships do not always work, and make sure their partner is who they say they are. Just to further conclude, we will like to leave you with a few helpful safety tips from the Safe Online Dating Alliance: 1.Use an online dating company that puts its members' safety above the "privacy" of other members. 2.Use an online dating company that conducts criminal background screenings. If your online dating company does not run criminal background screenings on their users, have one done on your own, especially before meeting in person. 3.Do not advertise any personally identifying information -- common blunders are screen names and email addresses that contain enough information to determine your identity. 4.Spend time getting to know someone online before talking on the phone or meeting offline. 5.Report any member safety concerns to your online dating company. Stay away from people who bully you for personal information right away or pressure you to meet instantly. 6.Always let friends/family know where you are going on your date, details of who you're going to meet, and what time you plan to be home. If your date is going well and you want to extend it beyond the time specified, call the person you let know about the date and tell them what time you'll be home later. 7.Meet in a well lit public place, during daylight hours, with other people around. Try a coffee shop or restaurant. Bring a friend to protect you in case the date goes badly. 8.Use your own transportation or public transportation. 9.Take a cell phone or change for a pay phone so you can communicate with friends/family if necessary. 10.Do not go off alone with your date. Predators are masterful at building trust and confidence quickly and can take their victims by surprise.
You should chat with the person and ask them to send a recent updated picture of themselves (dating2day).
The Aricle went on to say, "You should chat with the person and ask them to send a recent updated picture of themselves" (dating2day).
Edited by Lauren Cargill
This would be called an online dating cheater (Negative Aspects).
This selfsh act would be considered online dating cheating (Negative Aspects).
Edited Lauren Cargill
He rushed to book a flight on the earliest plane to her.
He rushed to book a flight on the earliest flight to be with her.
Edited by Kelly Florczak
“Numerous people exaggerate or lie about who they are” (Pegsus.cc.ucf).
“Numerous online daters exaggerate or lie about who they are” (Pegsus.cc.ucf).
Edited by Rachel Le
"but once you meet them, things may not be what the seemed to be." but once you meet them, things may not be what they seem to be.
"but actually viewing a profile with pictures help still does not help the matter at hand " but actually viewing a profile with pictures still does not help the matter at hand.
Research Project 4
Team 3
Jennifer Henderson
Kelly Florczak
Lauren Cargill
Rachel Le
Dr. William Archibald
English 110.50
Social Networking: The Negatives of Online Dating
According to Online Dating, Online Dating started in 1980 when virtual message boards were created and they were named Soc.men and Soc.women. This was thought to be an easy way to communicate with a widened range of people in the comforts of their own homes through computers. It did not gain ratings until the 1990s when the internet became very popular. While the internet went through the roof, it also took online dating with it.
In 2004, it is stated on Wikipedia, that the United States alone spent $469.5 million on online dating, and by the end of the year there were eight hundred and forty four lifestyle and dating sites. Dating Sites have skyrocketed since the mid 2000s. Now you are able to freely browse sites just as easily as you can search on Google. Online dating sites are easy to search through based on your likings. Some people search specifically in sexual orientation, by race, and by religion. Hitwise reported that JDate (for Jewish Singles), Christian Mingle and Christian Café, Manhunt (for gay men) Love From India, Black Christian Meet, Amigos (for Latino singles), Asian People Meet, and Shaadi (for Indian singles) are the top rated popular sites (Online Dating Service 2). When you use the online sites you can make a profile and you write things to describe yourself. Most of the websites have boxes that you can check off to describe your interests and dislikes. People who faithfully use online dating usually range from the ages of twenty-three to twenty-seven and then forty to forty-five. You normally see young couple on the websites sharing how they have found love over a small amount of time.
The major online sites used today are Match.com and eHarmony.com. They are very popular and even have commercials that air on primetime television to get more publicity. Match.com services forty countries and territories, and also hosts websites in fifteen different languages. Their mission is to help singles find the kind of relationship they are looking for (Match.com). EHarmony is more in depth with finding your perfect match. Not only do they help you find someone you have things in common with, they help you pick someone with the same chemistry in all aspects. The three goals they focus on are core traits (such as emotional, adaptability, and intellect), values and beliefs (such as spiritually and feelings about children), and relationships and skills (such as conflict resolution) (eHarmony.com). This is not always a good thing because you are putting your whole life out there and everything that you believe in. You can easily be taken advantage of.
Online dating comes with a lot of disadvantages that most people do not consider before signing up. According to Online Dating, a lot of dating websites will keep user profiles online for months or years even though the person is not currently active, making it seem like there are more members who are available. Some sites require that the users have to be subscribed before they can trade information, so when the send messages they will take off the email addresses, telephone numbers, etc. Some sites have “bait profiles” that are placed by the site owners just to attract new users and many users have sent complaints concerning this problem.
Members are attracted to low-priced free “trial” memberships where you have to enter your credit card information just to join, but do not know that at the end of the trial, the memberships automatically charge the full fee even if the user has not used any of the services. Online predators find online dating sites interesting because the sites expand them to ‘new targets’ of opportunity for Internet fraud (Online Dating Services).
It is also stated on Online Dating Services that even when some members’ profiles are “real”, there is still a lack of trust. Some users may not be comfortable with the way that they look, so they would opt in telling a white lie by saying they are taller than what they actually are or they are younger than what they actually are.
There are several major disadvantages to online dating that we will discuss today. The first one is falling victim to scam artists, the second one is your ‘match’ could pretend to be someone else, and the final one is your ‘match’ could end up living in a different state that may be far away. Many things can go wrong if you are not careful but we will only go into further details about the three mentioned above. Hopefully after reading this paper, you will see that we feel strongly about the disadvantages to online dating and se that we are against it for these reasons. Online dating is used worldwide and has been out for a long time. Modern technology has come a long way and benefits the realm of dating, but how safe is it?
When it comes to looking for love online, you have to be conscious of the different types of scams that you may run into along the way. According to dictionary.com, he term scam means, “A confident game or other fraudulent schemes, especially for making a quick profit”. In today’s society, there is enough scamming going on right in front of our faces, so who knows what is really going on with someone on the other end of a computer. Now when you think about scams, that topic alone can be really broad, so today we have narrowed it down into two areas. The first area that we will discuss will deal with con-artists and identity theft. The second area of discussion will deal with rapist and sexual predators.
In regards to con-artist, these people are always trying to find a way to advance at other people’s expenses. When signing up for these online dating services, it is most important to protect your personal information. There are tons of people who sign up for these services, without the intent of utilizing them for what they are intended for. According to match.com’s safety tips, you should always guard your identity. They go on to say that you should not share your real name, personal phone numbers, or any other identifiable information on your public profile pages. Also while IMing or emailing until you feel comfortable enough to do so. I would like to expand on this idea a little. When you have your personal information on these made up profile pages, it is that much easier for an online predator to steal your identity. That is what this whole idea of a con-artist is all about. These people of all races, shapes and sizes, as well as ages go from page to page just to see if they can find that one person who did not know the danger of revealing their personal information on their profile page.
Back home in Philadelphia where I am from, I know a guy named Richard Tasker who fell victim to this selfish act. Richard was kind enough to share his story with us through a personal interview. Richard had signed up for a personal profile on eHarmony.com in hopes of finding his soul mate through different compatible outlets. What Richard did not know was that he had just signed his identity away to an online scam artist. After communicating with someone via IMing, emails, and telephone for about two months, they both agreed that it was time to meet face-to-face. Richard and this unidentified woman met after just two months of communicating, at a local club in the city for some drinks. After ending their date and going their separate ways, Richard never heard from this woman again. He tried reaching out to her via familiar outlets as used before, but he did so to no avail. About a week had gone by and he had given up on contacting this woman, but then he noticed that he Social Security Card was missing from his wallet. Everything had immediately become clear to him; this woman had stolen it from his wallet when he left it in his coat as he went to the bathroom. Although things were bad enough, Richard did not yet realize that things were about to get worst for him. Richard did not know much abut the Dos and Don’ts to online dating. When he created his profile page, he added all of his personal information like his real name, address, phone number, date of birth, etc. So now not only does this woman have his Social Security Card, she also has access to his personal information through his profile page. When you decide to subscribe to these online dating services, this should be one of your biggest fears. By the grace of God Richard was able to turn everything over to the police and get things situated before it was too late, but for someone else, it may be too late. This is one reason why we feel that online dating and meeting people over the web should never be an option for anyone.
Now that we have talked a little about online identity theft, we would now like to talk a little about online sexual predators. There are lots of people who surf these online social networking sites in hopes of finding another victim. There have been plenty of cases where one will find that someone made up a false page on these dating sites just to get women into a vulnerable position to be taken advantage of. According to eHarmony.com’s Q & A portion of the website, a subscriber asked if it was safe to go on these blind dates alone; eHarmony responded by saying that it is always better to be safe than to be sorry. Always make sure someone knows where you are going. I would like to add to that by saying that if you can take someone with you that is even better. If you find that you are alone and your blind date and your date becomes a bit abusive, demanding or just plain crazy, relocate yourself to a public area surrounded by people and phone a friend. I found that this is the easiest way for woman and men to themselves in these types of situations when dealing with online dating services.
So far we have discussed the topic of online dating scams, now we will go into the topic of not actually being the person that you say you are. As already mentioned, dating through the internet can be one of the most deceitful things done through social networking today. There are so many people world wide that go on dating websites to find their match. Well what some people do not realize is that the person that you are talking to and seeing pictures of someone that may not really be that person. There are many things that someone who dates online can do to deceive another person about their profile or about themselves. First thing you can ask yourself is can I trust this person? Well, how much do you really know about this person? The things that you know about a person who you meet online may not be anything like they really say. You have not seen or met this person personally so trust might not be the case (Negative aspects). There are things people should consider before they get their selves involved with a website.
With online dating the person will have a picture of themselves on the front page for you to see what they look like. There are things on the webpage that show different facts about yourself and also the picture of you and some of your friends. This page is almost like a MySpace or a Facebook (represented for college and high school students). “Numerous people exaggerate or lie about who they are” (Pegsus.cc.ucf). People can put up a picture of their best friend so that they can get more attention than they feel they would get with their own picture. This means that the person you are looking at and think you are talking to ay not really be that person. They can already start off the relationship wrong by giving you a faulty picture.
Dating online is probably one of the most secret places to date. Since being on the internet is not something you can just track all the time you do not really know what the other person is doing. The person you have been talking to for the past two weeks may be talking to someone else as well. You never know if the other person is talking to more than one person. This would be called an online dating cheater (Negative Aspects). This does not sound like it is that big of a deal seeing how that you have not even met this person personally, but to some it is. Online dating can hurt the person that is on the website to find their true match.
The worst, and most deceitful thing with online dating are the people that put the wrong answer in their status box or in their about me sections on their pages. This means that people can say that they are in a complicated relationship and when someone from the site comes on to the page and sees this person that could have possibilities. Online websites give users the, “Anonymity for the members to misrepresent their status” (Negative aspects). A person can write anything and everything they want about themselves on their pages because it is not like someone is going to read it and say that it is a lie.
Online daters need to be very careful and watch the things they do and say with other people they are talking to. There are ways to get around dealing with a deceitful person from dating online. The one way would be to make sure you read all about their information and see what kind of a feeling it gives you. Then you need to look at the picture of the person and decide whether or not it is the real picture. You should chat with the person and ask them to send a recent updated picture of themselves (dating2day). This may help with you decision on pursuing a relationship with this person.
A perfect example of the topics discussed above would be:
A woman named Tammy that was married once and had two kids wanted to find that perfect guy to be in her life and in her kid’s lives. So when she first decided to go on the internet to find the guy she was very nervous and skeptical about it. She had her co-workers make her webpage. When she first started to get used to the website she began filling out the information about herself and the things that she was looking for. She had her own page and was on her way to find her special guy. She went on to her webpage and saw that she had a few messages. There was a repeated message from the same guy. So she read those first and noticed how interested he sounded. Then naturally, she responded to his messages. After they were talking a few weeks through mail, they began to communicate over the telephone. They were then ready to meet in person. Before she wanted to meet in person she asked him to send a picture of him to her so that she would know who to look for. So he did and she was relieved that these were the same pictures she had seen before. They end up going out on a date after talking to each other for the past month. Tammy goes out on this date feeling like everything should go very well just like all of their conversations had gone. Well when she got to the restaurant she noticed him and went over to the table. When she got over to the table they both introduced themselves and they started their date. Throughout the entire date all Tammy wanted to do was get out of there because she was so bored and didn’t feel like hearing his boring stories about work. After that date she didn’t call him again.
This date was an example of how things can end up when you are online dating. You can be mislead, deceived, and be at a loss of trust.
Traditional dating was pretty much asking the “girl/guy next-door” to the movie or to dinner and it was that simple. As technology has advanced our personal lives, a person would date someone who lived in the next town and even across the globe which was unheard of, in the “old-days”. Relationships are a rough knot to be untied so dating online would just add more of a strain. If you “google” online dating, millions of websites is searched in seconds but only a few million sites would actually give safety tips from your “virtual-loved” ones.
We had a chance to talk to David Warner; the man who had flew across states to meet the woman that he had met over the internet through one of the online dating websites that he subscribed to. We asked why he would waste money just to see someone that he had never met before. According to him, he had checked out pages of women that and had narrowed down possible woman who have some of the same interests and hobbies as him. Then one day the internet-cupid hit him by a click, he stated, “I started to skim through her profile then I stop to look at her pictures then I actually went back to read her profile word-for-word”. It had taken him awhile before he actually had the courage to email her but she didn’t reply until 2 weeks after. They had been chatting and emailing each other since. Then he continued, “Our relationship went to the next level when she asked for my phone number and I don’t know what had struck me, but a man with big thumbs like me, went to add unlimited text to my plan which I never had before; I thought only ‘teens’ would text and I felt so silly since two people in their mid-thirties would text”. They have been online dating for over a year-and-a-half to be exact, according to his counting. One day out of a blue, about two weeks before Christmas, he thought it would be nice to date “off-line” and great to spend the holidays with her. He rushed to book a flight on the earliest plane to her. He flew over to Texas to meet her then he didn’t tell me how he felt when he first met her, but he did mention that he could not get out of there fast enough. The entire one and a half year online relationship had been based on fake pictures and a misrepresented storyline. He said that he had never been more humiliated in his life.
Now I am sure that there are plenty of people who subscribe to these online dating services who would love to tell you that their story was just a little different, but the reality is things like this happened everyday.
His story had added to what we thought of online dating. As we researched and found different sources that deal with all the issues and problems that people had while dating online, this further proved the notion. People that are doing the international or long distance dating have a triple oppression than to date some one that you know from friends and included, local online dating. One of the tips that we have found on almost all of the sites that we visited was safety, how to, and dos and don’ts. Especially, when it is come to women when it’s their first visit or come to an unfamiliar place, they need to be extra careful of where they are going to and staying.
Most websites would bold or number one tip and that is to be careful and to keep in mind things such as hotel location or private rooms and do not take or wear valuable items on your first date. Second tip is to use taxi from your location to the arranged meeting place which is also in public rather than in your hotel room or in a remote location. Although, the other person might insist to visit more privately for more convenience, you have to take into account that you do not know this person. Third tip is to keep friends and family posted that you have arrived and when you plan to return or when you are going to meet someone and where.
Unfortunately, you may trust the person that you are chatting with or talking on the phone for months, and they may seem to be the one for you are, but once you meet them, things may not be what the seemed to be. The old saying goes, “if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is”.
Based on eHarmony’s users or any other people whom are using online dating services, the advantages are, “just for the price of a couple of drinks or dinners, you could subscribe”. So to pay a fee of x amount of dollars to view a few pages, of people that may have the same interests as you may be worth it. The saying, “looks are not everything” but actually viewing a profile with pictures help still does not help the matter at hand because “they are not always who they said they are”. Also to help you eliminate the “it is not you but it is me” kind of situations, give yourself the chance to see them so it will not be a disappointment when you finally meet.
There are advantages and disadvantages in all kinds of dating whether it is online or off-line and more importantly, internationally, so to prevent yourself from getting into risky things or unhealthy relationships that you may regret later. Even if your relationship have gown into a “mutual love,” like in Mr. Warner’s story, you always need to keep in mind that there is a huge population of a untruthful people on earth. Unluckily, you could be draw as one of the victims, so do research of where you want to provide your privacy information such as addresses and phone numbers.
After hearing all the experiences, we still agree that online dating is very dangerous. The interviews make it easy to see that people can get hurt emotionally and physically. There are many problems that people face, but they fail to say when talking about online dating. Most of the time people just share stories of how their relationships worked or did not work instead of listing the dangers. When on the sites, they do not have the disadvantages written in fine print. People have to use these websites at their own risk. We wanted to let it be known that online dating is not as safe as everyone makes it seem. Just one slip up can cost someone their identity or precious time. People need to make sure that the person they are interested in is the same person who is behind the computer. They should contact the person to meet up and make sure it is in a public place. Online daters should be aware of scam artists, know that blind long distance relationships do not always work, and make sure their partner is who they say they are.
Just to further conclude, we will like to leave you with a few helpful safety tips from the Safe Online Dating Alliance:
1. Use an online dating company that puts its members' safety above the "privacy" of other members.
2. Use an online dating company that conducts criminal background screenings. If your online dating company does not run criminal background screenings on their users, have one done on your own, especially before meeting in person.
3. Do not advertise any personally identifying information -- common blunders are screen names and email addresses that contain enough information to determine your identity.
4. Spend time getting to know someone online before talking on the phone or meeting offline.
5. Report any member safety concerns to your online dating company. Stay away from people who bully you for personal information right away or pressure you to meet instantly.
6. Always let friends/family know where you are going on your date, details of who you're going to meet, and what time you plan to be home. If your date is going well and you want to extend it beyond the time specified, call the person you let know about the date and tell them what time you'll be home later.
7. Meet in a well lit public place, during daylight hours, with other people around. Try a coffee shop or restaurant. Bring a friend to protect you in case the date goes badly.
8. Use your own transportation or public transportation.
9. Take a cell phone or change for a pay phone so you can communicate with friends/family if necessary.
10. Do not go off alone with your date. Predators are masterful at building trust and confidence quickly and can take their victims by surprise.
Works Cited
Davis, Tammy. Telephone Interview. Nov 18, 2008.
“eHarmony #1 Trusted Relationship Site Move Beyond "Traditional" Online Dating.” 2 Nov 2008 <http://www.eharmony.com/>.
Faigley, Lester. The Brief Penguin Handbook. 3rd ed. Pearson Education. 1-577.
“Match.com - Find Singles at the World's Largest Online Dating Personals Service.” 2 Nov 2008 <http://www.match.com/matchus/>.
“Negative Aspects of Online Dating.” 3 Nov 2008 <http://ezinearticles.com/?Negative-Aspects-of-Online-Dating&id=844390>.
“Negative Attributes of Internet Dating.” 3 Nov 2008 <http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~smathews/negative.html>.
“Online dating service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” 3 Nov 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_dating_service>.
“Problems with Internet Dating Services.” 2 Nov 2008 <http://www.dating2day.org/problems-with-internet-dating-services.html>.
Safer Online Dating Alliance. “Safer Online Dating Tips.” 3 Nov 2008 <http://www.safteronline
dating.org/tips>.
Tasker, Richard. Personal Interview. Nov 14, 2008.
Warner, David. Personal Interview. Nov 01 2008.
Edited by Jennifer Henderson
You should chat with the person and ask them to send a recent updated picture of themselves (dating2day).
The Aricle went on to say, "You should chat with the person and ask them to send a recent updated picture of themselves" (dating2day).
Edited by Lauren Cargill
This would be called an online dating cheater (Negative Aspects).
This selfsh act would be considered online dating cheating (Negative Aspects).
Edited Lauren Cargill
He rushed to book a flight on the earliest plane to her.
He rushed to book a flight on the earliest flight to be with her.
Edited by Kelly Florczak
“Numerous people exaggerate or lie about who they are” (Pegsus.cc.ucf).
“Numerous online daters exaggerate or lie about who they are” (Pegsus.cc.ucf).
Edited by Rachel Le
"but once you meet them, things may not be what the seemed to be."
but once you meet them, things may not be what they seem to be.
"but actually viewing a profile with pictures help still does not help the matter at hand "
but actually viewing a profile with pictures still does not help the matter at hand.